This invention relates to a meat tenderer primarily for use in a kitchen by a housewife and, in particular, to a meat tenderer that is capable of easily and efficiently cutting the fibers and/or tough cellular tissue in meat to render the meat more palatable and chewable.
It has long been known that a relatively tough cut of meat can be made more chewable and generally more palatable by mechanically breaking down the meat fibers. This is typically accomplished by beating upon the meat with a heavy implement. As disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,396,020 and 715,695, many of the earlier tenderers utilized hinged upper and lower plates containing opposed pyramid-shaped teeth that were capable of being brought down on both sides of the meat with sufficient force to crush the tissues and stringy fibers between the teeth. A good deal of energy had to be applied to the plates in order to accomplish the desired work and, as a result, the average housewife was generally unable to effectively operate the device.
A bladed implement for tenderizing meat is describe in U.S. Pat. No. 2,392,036. This implement contains a plurality of rectangular-shaped blades that are sharpened along the bottom surface to provide a series of relatively long knife-edges for cutting, or more precisely, chopping the meat fibers. In practice, the knife-edges are brought down flat against the meat with a hammering-like motion to deliver a blow of sufficient force to drive the knife-edges into the meat. As noted in this patent, the cleaved meat tends to stick to the blade surfaces and a stripper means is required in order to remove loose meat and the like therefrom. Furthermore, the long, straight cutting edge of each blade is not well suited for chopping through the meat and the flat edge tends to diminish the force of the blow thereby considerably lessening the amount of blade penetration that can be achieved. In the event the blades are driven deeply into the meat, large areas are cleaved apart, resulting in unavoidable damage to otherwise good meat and excessive loss of natural, flavor-producing juices that are so important for the proper preparation of the meat.
Some tenderers also require the use of a vice-like fixture for securely holding the meat while it is being tenderized. A device of this nature is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 802,144. Typically, the meat is held between two coacting plates having openings formed therein. The meat is tenderized by passing a series of rather massive, four-sided teeth, supported upon a hand-held tool, through the openings. In practice, it is somewhat difficult to align the teeth with the appropriate receiving holes at the start of each tenderizing stroke and a considerable amount of force must be applied to the tool in order to produce effective penetration of the meat. By the same token, in order to treat all of the meat area, the meat must be repeatably repositioned within the fixture thereby further complicating the procedure.